Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 1015: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the position regarding a management company (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18812/12]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will appreciate that I am not in a position to comment on a particular case in response to a Parliamentary Question. However, I can indicate the following by way of general information.

The principal objectives of the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011, which entered into force on 1 April 2011, are to ensure the timely transfer of the common areas of multi-unit developments to owners' management companies (OMCs) and to facilitate the fair, efficient and effective management of such companies. Section 18 requires OMCs to establish and maintain a scheme of annual service charges from which they may discharge expenditure incurred on common or shared services, including insurance, refuse collection and security services. In order to ensure transparency and accountability, the annual service charge, and the services to be funded by it, must be approved by a general meeting of the apartment owners.

I should add that section 18 also provides that each apartment owner is under an obligation to pay the annual service charge. As regards unpaid service charges, the position is that section 22 provides that unpaid charges may be recovered by the OMC as a simple contract debt in a court of competent jurisdiction, i.e normally the District Court.